User talk:Octarinemage
Entries until 8-24-2009 can he found in Archive1. Sryth Skin This heading is for keeping all discussion about this on one place. I suppose you were already planning to do it that way, but just in case: while you're testing, I'd like you to create a new skin. Please do not modify the current Monaco one until it's completely ready for rolling it out to everybody. Scarbrowtalk 20:52, 22 August 2009 (UTC) After looking it in my Preferences, it seems like you cannot define a custom, personal skin, so I change my previous plead into use another skin for testing that is not the default. For example, the "Smoke" or "Brick" ones. Scarbrowtalk 21:03, 22 August 2009 (UTC) * Actually there is a way before you make it site wide. See here. Note the first bulleted option. This will allow me to do all the testing I want without it showing live. I already have a copy of the original on my home drive to study and modify. I need but copy it over the user skin suggested. Where do I store background images on the site? I want them away from prying eyes, if possible, and/or protected from deletion or edit. I will need the full URL to them when it comes to the testing phase. I want to work with the Sryth background images in the first phase before I start changing any of the colors to match. --Octarinemage 21:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC) ** Testing the new skin is accomplished via this. I will inform you when the first phase is in place. --Octarinemage 21:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC) : First: Now you're an admin, you have the option to "protect" a page or a file so only admins can modify it. This is, however, usually not needed. Most users are civil as a whole, and on this wiki it's even more so, owing to the nature of Sryth's players. Deleting pages or files is reserved to admins too. : Second: I monitor the whole Recent Changes quite thoroughly and frequently, so I'll be aware of any changes in this page. However, when want me to answer ASAP, please message me in my talk page as usual. : Third: You can store images wherever you please, using the usual . You could create a new category for those images you're going to need, so we can track them easily. : Fourth: Keep up the good work! :) Scarbrowtalk 21:47, 22 August 2009 (UTC) : Excellent. Yes, I protected four pages from new users and unregistered users. They are TableX, TableXrow, 1x, and void. It was vital to protect the last two. I believe this still gives non-new (veteran?) users the ability to change them if needed. --Octarinemage 21:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC) :: Yes, that protection level forces you to confirm your e-mail address before you can edit that page. Is what Wikipedia calls "Semi-protection". Keep in mind that if you have problems to log in again, you won't be able to edit them! I agree with 1x and void. The others are less necessary, but I don't see reasons to revert. Keep protection to a minimum, if possible. After all, there is nothing a regular user can do that an admin can't revert. Scarbrowtalk 22:27, 22 August 2009 (UTC) :: True, and ok. I doubt I'll have problems logging in since I use Firefox now. I still can't log in with IE. It's set to abort the page load on jscript errors and googleAds always messes up because of Service Pack 2. --Octarinemage 22:38, 22 August 2009 (UTC) ::: Please inform Wikia anyway of your problems logging in with IE. They will surely appreciate the info. Scarbrowtalk 22:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC) * Octarinemage, you're setting the whole wiki skin to Custom. Are you sure that's what you want to do? Weren't you going to test it on a personal skin? Or I am missing something? Scarbrowtalk 22:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC) ** Don't worry, you haven't really modified anything. If you had, I would have reverted myself. I'm adding new templates now from Wikipedia, I expect they will be useful. Look for Template:Inuse and Template:Ombox (still not finished) Scarbrowtalk 00:23, 24 August 2009 (UTC) Monster template I've left my comments on the template's talk page, since they were becoming too big for a mere suggestion. Scarbrowtalk 16:52, 23 August 2009 (UTC) : And by the way, can you please sign my petition for a bot account (if you agree with it) in Sryth_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#Bot_account? Thank you in advance. Scarbrowtalk 18:03, 23 August 2009 (UTC) Adapted templates Hi, I've been trying to adapt the Template:Inuse to this site, and I just don't know where to look for the property that vertically centers the image and text. In the wikipedia version it's centered, I must have missed some class or something in the translation, but I'm quite sure I've copied everything related on Common.css. Can you take a look? Scarbrowtalk 00:54, 24 August 2009 (UTC) * Hard to tell what's going on without seeing the code. One thing I did notice, if you view the source at Inuse, you'll see they used mbox and not ombox. Also, the CSS param in ombox is style= for the entire message box table and textstyle= for the text. --Octarinemage 04:07, 24 August 2009 (UTC) ** I'm not sure to understand you, since you've not correctly formatted the link. In Wikipedia, Inuse uses mbox. I've changed it to Ombox because Ombox was easier to adapt here, but they should work the same way. And in wikipedia, both Ombox's image and text are vertically centered. Scarbrowtalk 04:12, 24 August 2009 (UTC) *** I'm tired and sleepy. Ombox seems to have the image table cell to be vertically aligned by default to the top, whereas mbox is vertically aligned to the middle. I could get the text centered in Inuse but the image centering is still eluding me. --Octarinemage 04:15, 24 August 2009 (UTC) *** hmmm. There's an example in wikipedia's ombox page showing a vertically centered check mark image, so it's possible. Will try some more CSS to see how they did it. --Octarinemage 04:47, 24 August 2009 (UTC) *** Done. I added the vertical-align:middle to the td.mbox-image class in the common.css and that fixed it. --Octarinemage 05:08, 24 August 2009 (UTC) ::Thank you, Octarinemage. BTW, it would be easier to reach this page if you put a link to your talk page in your signature. About archiving, usually is done by moving the unwanted conversations to a subpage. See my talk page for an example, I've just revised mine. Scarbrowtalk 14:21, 24 August 2009 (UTC) :: On your preferences, first section, check "Custom signature" and type any wikitext. Mine is "Scarbrowtalk", and that text is substituted every time I use the ~~~ (the fourth tilde adds the time, a fifth one removes the name and leaves the time). Scarbrowtalk 14:42, 24 August 2009 (UTC) re: Foe of course it's OK! Just mark the template with so we know when the other one is making changes. Scarbrowtalk 16:37, 24 August 2009 (UTC) : I have a tentative layout for the MR algorithm, but I won't be able to implement it just yet. Some family problems are going to limit severely the time I'll be able to spend online for the next couple of days, so don't expect to see me around much until maybe the weekend. If you want to try your hand at the problem, yes, I was planning to use the to-hit tables in Combat as the base. My idea is quite convoluted and I don't have time to explain it right now, sorry. See you in a couple of days. Scarbrowtalk 08:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC) re: The Giants With respect to The Giants, I feel that page has both merits for staying and for being deleted once its content is moved to Hawklor. However, we have a tradition (albeit a short one) to make pages for Sagas, like Runeskin and Shattered Skull. Sagas have a certain internal consistency, and they mostly seem like they were split only because as only one adventure it would have been too long and tiresome to play for some casual players. Thus, we can justify the want for a unified Quest page for a saga, with its Questbox. After all, we ofter refer to "The Shattered Skull" or "The Giants", I'd dare to say we do this more frequently than we refer to "The Ghost of Palemoor Isle" or "Stonesong". And it's quite justified to want to have a unified Questbox for the whole saga, as if it were a single, big quest. This haven't been a problem on anybody's opinion until you mentioned it, Octarinemage, but now that has been mentioned, I think that maybe now is the moment to discuss it openly. But first, I'd want to clarify a couple of questions. #No matter how many edits I made, no matter how much do I help here, no matter how much you (or any other(s)) respect and value my opinion on this wiki, I'm not the boss here. Nobody here needs to ask for my permission before editing. We're all free, valuable, intelligent editors who try our best to make this wiki great. Hastifer does not need to ask me before adding a Questbox more than you need to ask me before doing a new template. You can ask for help and guidance, not permission. #We're all fallible. If something one of us does makes some other editor unhappy, we can discuss it and reach and agreement. That's why I'm writing up this when I would be gladly coding the Foe template. #Advertisements of pages saying they're being reworked serve as a warning, and as a means to avoid edit conflicts if possible. They do not forbid anybody to try to help. If you want to reserve use of a page for a while, use Template:Inuse so you're not disturbed. For anything else, an open discussion is in order. Now for the interesting part. The question is: Should Sagas pages have their own Quest page with their own Questbox? My reasons are outlined above, and I'm more inclined to answer "yes". I'm an inclusionist, and I think they add value to the wiki by allowing us to refer to a series of quests as a unit. However, we can discuss when and how, how many quests must be linked before we consider it a "Saga" and things like that. Please express your opinions on the matter below. Scarbrowtalk 20:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC) * Points taken. I didn't mean to sound ungracious or controlling and I apologize to any concerned if it came across that way. I personally don't think sagas should have questboxes on their top for the reason I outlined on Hastifer's talk page: they are not quests. They are an opinion someone has about a set of quests, an opinion that factually does not follow the game. Nowhere ingame is The Giants treated as one long quest except as narrative. As such, and in keeping with one of the tenets of a wikipedia to be neutral in its views and treatment of articles, then my vote is for not having them no matter how tempting it is. In the earlier days of computing, Microsoft was condemned, and rightfully so, for its 'creeping featurism', that is, its philosophy of putting as many gizmos and gadgets in an application because 'the more the better'. This historically has been proven to introduce more bugs than not and they are still reeling from that overindulgence to this day. In the same vein, I consider pages that advertise themselves to be what they are not should be avoided and viewed with doubt. That's my two cents on the subject. As far as Hastifer is concerned, I believe I owe him an apology and I will do so immediately. It's not the first or last time I've put my shoe in my mouth and it is just my misfortune I've perhaps grown accustomed to the taste of leather. (This is on your talk page too. I didn't see your note about redirecting our attention to here.) --Octarinemagetalk 21:50, 26 August 2009 (UTC) :: Hmmm. Well I guess I have to retract the part where I said "I agree with everything" since the things I "agreed" with are mutually exclusive. :: I'm sticking with keeping the questbox on saga pages. "Saga" is just a convenient label for a "series of related quests" or "adventures that unlock each other in a given sequence". The Giants fits the saga definition a whole lot better than the sword of merzekk does -- each quest happens in a set sequence. It is more than just "narrative" that relates the quests, they actually are dependent on each other in two ways: ::* Storyline ::* Mechanically (the 2nd quest can't be started until the 1st one is complete) :: And questboxes are just devices that we use to make our lives easier. It doesn't turn a saga into a quest, just makes it easier to reference. What's more, if we want to be "purist" about the terminology, we'd have to rename a lot of stuff on this wiki. After all, "Quest" is just a convenient term that we use to reference several things: ::* Adventures found under the "Adventures in this location" link ::* Exploration (realms at random, various explorable locations) ::* Events found during gameplay (non-adventures, and not in explorable locations, but found during gameplay) ::* Proving Grounds adventures ::* Replayable scenarios ::* probably more but I don't recall :: So I vote for keeping the questboxes on saga pages (and any other page that ends up needing it). But I also vote for possibly clarifying the criteria to qualify to become a "saga". But I don't have time at the moment... later... ::--Hastifertalk 12:56, September 3, 2009 (UTC) Erasing yourself AGAIN? Should I rollback your deletions to your user page, or maybe insisting that you continue with our work here will be enough? Scarbrowtalk 20:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC) : I understand that this user is temporarily retiring from active editor's duty. Take this into mind if you're going to message him, since he probably won't answer. Scarbrowtalk 09:56, 29 August 2009 (UTC)